I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” -Jeremiah 31:33b
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." -John 12:20-21
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| The Oakwoods, Tanner Paul Hall, West Allis, WI |
The bus doors close.
I walk up the gravel driveway.
Back pack on one shoulder.
And I breathe out the stress of the day.
Just… let it all go…
Let go of the awkward interactions of the morning
about which I am still obsessing.
Let go of the impossible math test
and our “very mean” teacher.
Let go of the embarrassment of gym class.
Let go of the long bus ride home and those awful, taunting,
other kids.
The bus doors close.
And I let it all go.
And slip, happily, into the afternoon routine:
Unlock the door.
Turn on the TV on.
Hear the familiar theme songs of “The Disney Afternoon.”
Which I’m definitely NOT too old for in high school.
And turn up the volume so I can hear it in the next room.
Open the freezer…
Corn dogs? Perfect.
Start up the oven and scope out the laundry room.
The laundry room is where mom hides the extra-good snacks so we don’t eat them all before she gets home.
I finish eating. Quickly.
And I’m on my bike.
I’m heading down the street to Josh and Jesse’s house.
It’s time to practice.
We’re in a band.
More than a band, we’re on a mission.
We gather around us people like us—misfits, weirdos, nerds, those outside the ‘norm’ as we understand it—
We gather around us people like us and we give them a song.
We’re on a mission.
We gather around us people like us and we create with them a space, a place for those with no place—a place to dance and flirt and scream and jump and sing.
It’s very therapeutic.
For the crowd and for us.
We’re on a mission.
And so we give of our lives daily,
like clockwork, afterschool, we dedicate our full selves to create:
new songs,
new spaces,
new anthems of belonging in our unbelongingness,
And other expressions of teenage awkwardness and angst.
We give of our lives daily,
to create
A collective, a community, even a culture.
It’s magical. It’s beautiful. And It’s sacred.
We’re on a mission.
And we give thanks.
+
We get older.
Practices become more spread out.
Lives becomes busier.
Commitments and responsibilities begin to overwhelm.
Our sacrifice
(the time we give to create a song and a community)
at least for me,
no longer gives life the way it once did.
Now practice (rehearsal), our daily joy,
has to be “fit in.”
Our band, our love,
our life together,
becomes
yet another obligation.
On the calendar.
A reminder.
A sticky note on a computer screen next to a jar of vitamins.
But we had do it.
We had to play!
It’s who we were.
It’s who I am!
And you can’t let down the fans. Right?
What happens if you do?
So we play.
Our music and our shows start to remain the same.
Seldom a new song.
+
Some of us get married.
Some get divorced or go to school or get jobs.
We do our best to fill our lives with the things
20- and 30- somethings do their best to fill their lives with.
Best friends forever.
We grow apart.
Soon, instead of shows, we have “reunions.”
People come out in numbers.
Droves! Still!
Filling church basements and VFW halls.
But it’s not the same.
+
Our living art, alive and life-giving,
art that was more than art,
Art that was an expression and an anthem of our community of misfits and left-outs,
had become, over time, not much more than a nostalgia piece,
a Polaroid,
a reminder of the times we used to have,
those glorious days where we practiced for hours after class,
and ate corn dogs and pizza
and laughed and sang for days.
Our living and life-giving art had become, over time, not much more than a nostalgia piece.
Same songs for the same people.
And still it was amazing and meaningful and beautiful.
And sacred.
But something had changed:
No longer were we instigated to create again, something new.
We had our community. And our songs.
No longer were we instigated to create again.
Because our mission had been replaced by memories alone.
Like former high school athletes ruminating in the taverns on memories of the “big touchdown” at the “big game,”
we too had become high on a sort of sentimentalism.
It was great. And comforting. And felt good.
But no longer was it life-giving, for us, and especially not for others.
No longer was it life-giving, it was just:
life-remembering.
We gathered around decade-old songs reminiscing:
Remember when we were truly alive?
Remember when?...
Hey. When’s the next reunion?
Something had been lost.
Our mission had been replaced by memories alone.
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2 weeks ago,
We read the story from John, Chapter Two,
of Jesus’ “upset” in the temple.
In the story, one of the first in John’s Gospel,
(an event that will flavor the whole rest of Jesus’ story),
Jesus abruptly and upsettingly (as you remember)
overturns tables,
shouts loudly,
and drives out those who most visibly are abusing God’s professed home among God’s people.
The home, Jesus charges in the story, is no longer home.
It is no longer a place of belonging and welcome and sanctuary for God’s children.
It’s become something else.
The temple, he says, has been made into a marketplace.
I’d like to dwell on this story for yet another day.
Because
I imagine that when all these events took place,
that when Jesus made a scene and caused a disruption..
Something obviously deeper than this one direct, physical action, was going on.
That is, I think Jesus knew that the brokenness in that Cathedral
ran deeper than the moneychangers at the gate.
I imagine that Jesus knew that the home,
the place of belonging for those to whom he ministered—
the least, the last, and the lost—
the home for the oppressed and downtrodden—the misfits and left-outs—
the sick and the hungry and the tired….
I imagine that Jesus knew that the home, that sanctuary,
was, in one sense, no longer in that place.
That to some degree, that faith community was broken to the bone.
Perhaps this is why, for the rest of the gospel,
Jesus spends very little time there,
in the temple
with the religious leaders,
but instead goes into the places of wilderness;
but instead goes into the streets,
the alleyways, the viaducts, the deserts.
Perhaps this is why for the rest of the gospel,
Jesus leaves the cathedral to go to the places where the misfits and outcasts “belong.”
Perhaps Jesus realized that, more than the moneychangers,
the religious leaders and religious people themselves
had become complacent
with the temple they called their “home.”
Yes. They were quite religious.
Yes. They sang of their own belonging.
Yes. They rejoiced in their salvation.
Their chosen-ness.
Yes. They sang so sweetly of what God had done.
But these, the religious, the church people, the pious,
had forgotten that those to whom Jesus ministered had yet to hear a song.
They had forgotten that those to whom Jesus ministered remained in the desert, (quite literally),
in captivity, and largely alone.
They had forgotten that those to whom Jesus ministered were still waiting for a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
The church people had forgotten this. They were safe. And that’s all they had come to remember.
We’re safe. We’re saved!, they said.
The Bible said it. I believe it. That settles it.
Here I stand!
So here, at the temple, the cathedral, the religious community gathered around a kind of nostalgia, remembering the good old days, when they had been fully and truly alive,
forgetting that God was calling them to a new song.
There they gathered, remembering the exodus and the covenant,
forgetting the covenant of Living Love was still just about to be written anew on their hearts.
I think Jesus wanted their choir to swell.
I think Jesus wanted these faithful to sing a new song.
I think Jesus wanted them to remember, but more than memory, Jesus wanted them, in a new way, to be alive,
And, and, and, and… if that was possible, in some configuration,
I think Jesus wanted them
to create a space among them where the least, the last and the lost [who weren’t already there]
could also gather [with them, too!]
A place where they could dance and pray and sing and scream before their God,
And in the face of the death and violence that was all around them,
a place where they could thrive.
A place where they could be refreshed for the struggle that was life everyday.
I think Jesus wanted this.
And so (I think) this is one of the reasons
why Jesus removed a few of the barriers at the entrance of Cathedral.
As we read about just a couple of weeks ago.
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But the rest of the Gospel—the rest of Jesus’ mission and message
Would be spent on this harder task
(as it pertained to the already-religious people):
The rest of Jesus’ mission, as it pertained to these people, would be spent on
removing the barriers to genuine sacred community.
And the rest of Jesus’ mission would be spent on
removing the barriers of our hearts.
Calling God’s people from the isolation of memory alone, to a mission for the sake of the world, and for the sake of Love.
Amen? Amen.
May our memories of the sacred free us to find God anew.
May our memories of belonging free us to create spaces and a world where all people belong.
May of our memories of salvation help us provide sanctuary and home among us where all people are safe and loved.
May God give us a new song, and write the words of God’s covenant on our hearts, that God’s mission might give us new and abundant life.
Amen.
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